mi hermano Geko Jones has started a FREE NYC WEEKLY party dedicated to “afro-colombian & tropical beats and bass”! QUE BUENO. ‘Que Bajo’ begins this Tuesday; I’ll be spinning a special cumbia sonidera set there next week (Nov. 11) as we gather celebrate the debut El Hijo de la Cumbia album.

“Chingo Bling made all his money from tamales,” says Chingo Bling, referring to himself in the 3rd-person with generous objectivity. “All the piece and chains, the toe wear, the ostriches, the custom Versaces with the Virgin Mary. You can’t make all that off of CDs alone, you gotta have something else going on.”

top-notch liner notes to boot: “Some of Grime’s similarities to punk are debatable, but this one isn’t one of them: both genres boast a semi-lost treasure trove of incredible TRANSIENCE, one-of-a-kind tracks by young producers, many of whom only made records for six months of their lives before slipping away from music, back into everyday London life. . . And unlike established disciplines like House, these beats dare to challenge the dancefloor with pauses, gaps and other idiosyncrasies that don’t rely on the escapist hypnotic effects of a continuous matrix of 4×4 kicks. This freewheeling creativity is the product of music creators with no-one to answer to.”

the first one comes from a lively new Soundway compilation CD/2LP, Colombia! the Golden Age of Discos Fuentes, the Powerhouse of Colombian Music 1960-76. Martines recommended it, “perhaps the most important Colombian label.” (Lemon-Red revs it )

A few years ago I received an invitation to DJ some shows in Colombia. I was burnt out from travel & said no. I’m still kicking myself for missing that chance.

Playero a key player in Puerto Rico’s rambunctious proto-reggaetón scene of the early 90s (think hiphop-jeepbeat-reggae DJ-mixed madness, with rapid-fire singalong vox en español & that low-slung bass reminding you to celebrate your ass’s rhythmic possibilities, which are many). [All 4 MP3s in this post come from Playero’s Greatest Hits vol. 2 mix.] i responded to Wayne’s article, saying, among other things:

Wayne’s piece raises provocative questions on the transformation of ‘música negra’ (black music) to ‘reggaetón latino’, where the “receding presence of hiphop and reggae, this disappearing sonic blackness” gets supplanted by the sounds and stances of pan-Latino cultural nationalism.

Do the soft laws of of authenticity and community anticipate, provoke, or reflect this shift?

Ownership requires strict timekeeping – the original came first, the dude we’re gonna sue for copyright infringement came later. But ‘derivative’ culture (DJ culture, webbed thoughts) is a miasma of signifiers and style, dancing in the omnivorous, sensual now. Listen to the way his mixes pull in black music from all around… Lots of the DJ Playero tapes sound as fresh today as they ever were. Maybe fresher.

The swamp, the sampler, the street. Heat become environment, the air in your lungs.